"O Aunt Lucy! could you b'lieve I'd do that to my mamma ?" The very thought of so wounding that tender mother heart was evidently so full of pain to the little one, that Elsie could not refrain from responding to the appeal, "Mamma knows you would not, darling." "Oh, no, mamma, 'cause I love you!" cried the child, the young face growing bright with smiles.
"Atmospheric influences have often a great deal to do with these things; do you not find it so ?" Elsie said, turning to her friend.
"Yes, I have noticed that!" Lucy said, catching gladly at the suggestion: "and the air is certainly unusually oppressive this morning.

I feel nervous myself.

I think we'll have a gust before night." The last words were spoken in an undertone, but the quick ear of Gertrude caught them.

"Then I shan't go to school," she announced decidedly.
"Nonsense," said her mother, "'twon't be here till afternoon; probably not till night, if at all." "Now, ma, you're just saying that.

Aunt Elsie, do you really think it won't come soon ?" Glancing through the open window at the mountains and the sky, Elsie answered that she saw no present indications of a storm; there was nothing to betoken it but the heat and closeness of the air.
"Are you afraid of thunder, Aunt Elsie ?" asked Harry.
"Lightning, you silly boy," corrected Gertrude, "nobody's afraid of thunder." "Yes, you are," he retorted.